Multiple sources have confirmed that new PokéStops and Gyms were added in their local area. Some PokéStops were converted to Gyms also. Check your area to see if you’re one of the lucky ones to get the new data.

This update coincides with a few other changes to the Pokémon GO world map:

roads were updated recently

night and road colors were changed

a new batch of OpenStreetMap contributions was added in Korea

an app related to Ingress called “Portal Recon” is overwhelmed with rural portals

Here’s a list of confirmed cities and areas where reports came from:

Annecy (France)

Newcastle (UK)

Riga (Latvia)

Solothurn (Switzerland)

Barcelona (Spain)

Bavaria (Germany)

general India

general US

Ingress Portal Recon

Apparently, there’s an app to review potential Ingress portals called Portal Recon where players vote for places to become portals. Those portals, eventually become PokéStop and Gyms.

As per player reports, recently Niantic has been prioritizing rural areas and portal submissions in rural areas, around 50km distance from cities. Here’s a player report confirming these findings:

Inside the Portal Recon app, you can set your hometown and a “bonus” town. I set both to two cities about 100 km apart. Hometown has a metro population of 500,000 and the bonus city has a metro population of 1,000,000. I am currently in my hometown.

When reviewing portals, the portals are given to you randomly. I’ve reviewed 900 so far. 90% have been 50+ km outside both cities in little towns whose populations are all less than 5,000. It seems to be that NIA is intentionally prioritizing rural portals.

Has anybody else seen this?

Since I have no connection to these small towns, I am not as motivated to review portals. It would be better to review portals for your hometown and “bonus” town, as well as wherever you currently happen to be.

Also, a small note for our regular readers: our Generation 2 coverage is coming out next week. Stay tuned!